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Suggestions, Complaints and Compliments

The work we do for animals and the income generating activities we undertake to raise funds to support that work, means that thousands of people engage with the Home every year as rehoming customers, boarding customers, event attendees, donors, shop customers and volunteers.

The Home’s work spans across Edinburgh, the Lothians and often beyond allowing us to help hundreds of lost, stray and abandoned dogs and cats every year. Because of the scale of our activities, we recognise that, despite our best efforts, processes and training, there is always the possibility that we may, on occasion, fail to meet the high standards that we set for all our activities.

We also recognise that there is a lot of value in receiving feedback from our local community. If you feel our team have done something well and would like to let us know, or have a suggestion that you would like to share with us, we would be delighted to hear from you.

What To Do If You Have A Complaint

We view legitimate complaints positively as they are one of the ways we have to make sure we keep improving our customer service standards and the quality of everything that we do.

In particular, as an animal welfare charity, we take welfare standards seriously. If you have any concerns about the behaviour of one of our staff, volunteers or representatives in any situation, it is vital that you tell us about it immediately so that appropriate action can be taken.

If there are any aspects of the Home or it’s activities about which you feel you need to complain, please tell us as soon as possible. If we do not know about a problem, we cannot begin to resolve it and take action to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

All formal complaints are directed to our management team to ensure they receive a high priority.

What To Do If You Have A Suggestion Or Compliment

Our team of valued staff and volunteers work hard every day to ensure the best care for our animals and engagement with our local community. If you have encountered one of our team and feel that they deserve recognition, please contact us and we will pass the message to that member of staff or volunteer.

If you have suggestion that you feel might improve the way we work, we are always open to new ideas! We can’t guarantee that we will be able to put your suggestion into action, but we will always take new ideas into consideration.

How to Contact Us

If you wish to make a suggestion, complaint or compliment, please contact us via the following channels:

Phone: 0131 669 5331 (Monday – Saturday, 9am – 4pm)
Email: info@edch.org.uk
Post: 26 Seafield Road East, Edinburgh, EH15 1EH

Please note that complaints made via comments or messages via our social media channels, or any other methods will not be considered as a formal complaint. All formal complaints must be made via the above channels.

Our Complaints Procedure What we will do on receiving your complaint

● Your call, email or correspondence will be passed onto the manager of the department for which you wish to make a complaint.
● We’ll listen, record your complaint and advise you how it will be handled.
● We’ll investigate whenever necessary. If the complaint involves a member of staff or volunteer, we will not divulge the name of the complainant during an investigation unless we are specifically given permission to do so.
● We’ll take action to resolve the problem and tell you what that action is.
● We’ll take steps to avoid a repeat occurrence.

At all times we will treat you with understanding and respect. All we ask is that you do the same for our staff.

Confidential information in relation to your complaint will be handled sensitively.

We are not able to respond to anonymous complaints. We do not deal with matters for which the charity is not directly responsible unless it involves an animal welfare issue.

The Home occasionally works with professional fundraising agencies to help secure regular income to support our work. If you have a complaint regarding a fundraising agency working on behalf of the Home, please contact us so we can investigate your complaint with the agency.

Complaint Response Times

We would appreciate your understanding that, with limited resources, we cannot always respond to your complaint immediately, although we will whenever we can.

You will receive an initial acknowledgement and/or response within ten working days of receipt of your complaint and we expect to resolve most problems in that time.

Where a more in-depth investigation is required we aim to provide a full response within 20 working days. If there are exceptional circumstances, where that is not possible, we will advise you.

What Constitutes A Legitimate Complaint?

We regard a legitimate complaint as any expression of dissatisfaction with any aspect of Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home which is under the control of the charity, its staff or volunteers.

What If Our Response Does Not Satisfy You?

If the initial response from the department manager does not satisfy you, you can request for your complaint to be escalated to our senior management team/CEO who will undertake a further investigation within the above timescales (acknowledgement within ten working days and full response within 20 working days). Simply request for your complaint to be escalated after receiving our initial response and we will pass your complaint onto our senior management team.

If the response from our senior management team does not satisfy you, you can request to escalate your complaint to our Board of Trustees, where the above process and timescales will be withheld.

If you continue to feel dissatisfied with the response to your escalated complaint from our Board of Trustees, you can contact the following regulators:

If your complaint relates to fundraising, and we are unable to resolve it to your satisfaction, you can refer it to the Scottish Fundraising Standards Panel, who oversee fundraising standards in Scotland. They can be contacted via their website www.goodfundraising.scot.

If your complaint relates to how we have handled your personal data, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who enforce the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You can contact the ICO through their website www.ico.org.uk.

If your complaint relates to any other aspect of the organisation you can contact the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) who are responsible for the regulation of charities in Scotland. You can contact them through their website www.oscr.org.uk/about-charities/raise-a-concern/.

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